Year in Review | Singles of the Year

Year in Review | Singles of the Year

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Before the clamor to sum up 2010 falls silent, we wanted to sneak in one last list summing up Dialogue Incorporated's top singles of the year. From country folk to bubble gum electro pop to grinding dubstep, there was more variety in 2010 than in years past. This is a trend we hope to see continue in 2011. Over all, was it a great year for music? You know, not especially. There were many things we freaked out over, danced endlessly to and belted out a sing-a-long to when it came on in the car, but it was really tough to put the finishing touches on this list. Mostly because we couldn't help but feel like something was missing. But we don't think we forgot anybody. Every year can't get perfect marks, and the our highlights were as high as ever, so let's focus on those. Without further ado.

10) Booka Shade "Regenerate" - Get Physical

While we felt that Booka Shade polished its sound to such a degree on 2010's More that it lost a lot of its personality in the cleansing process, the duo's regenerate single was a masterstroke in achieving the sound and intensity that Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier set out to achieve.

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9) Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes "Home" - Vagrant Records

Full disclosure: this song totally came out in 2009. Normally we don't break the year rule, but we didn't discover this crazy hippie band until last year and we don't necessarily think that's our fault. Besides, we make the rules so we can just as easily break them. Our creative director, Joshua P. Ferguson, drunkenly danced around the Dialogue Inc. offices to this song over Lollapalooza weekend, and that alone was enough to land it on this list.

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8) Robyn "Dancing On My Own" - Konichiwa

Soft spoken and surprisingly introspective given her pop star status internationally, Sweden's Robyn offered up one of the high points in electro pop with this single from the first installment of her Body Talk series. Writing about the single as part of an interview earlier this year, Joshua P. Ferguson wrote, " 'Dancing On My Own,' the infectious lead single from June’s Body Talk Pt. 1, is a tale of love lost, but it also seems to announce that, regardless of the fickle tastes of big record labels (and ex-lovers), the striking and petite blonde will continue to be herself and do things her way. It also makes clear she’s keeping her sound upbeat and catchy as hell."

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7) Two Door Cinema Club "Something Good Can Work" - Kitsuné

We've had our hands on this indie dance anthem since early in the year so it logged considerable time in our DJ sets. A choice remix from the Twelves only extended its life span. A touch too much time spent listening to Vampire Weekend and this trio from Ireland penned their own white-boy-high-life pop single complete with soaring, distortion-free guitars and a backbeat shuffle from the drums. If Tony Allen, Paul Simon and the Rapture had found their way into the studio together, it might have come out sounding like this.

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6) Magnetic Man "Getting Nowhere" with John Legend - ColumbiaMaybe it's just us, but these guys snagging John Legend for a brilliant dubstep workout seems fantastically significant. For more of our thoughts on Magnetic Man, see our Artists of the Year list.

It was a big year for this dude. One of the U.K.'s biggest names in dubstep, he moves to L.A. gets taken in by Diplo—and subsequently M.I.A.—and next thing you know, he's getting phone calls from Britney Spears and Rihanna because they want beats from him too. We think he's the right man for the job. Writing about this track back in June, we had this to say, "Reminds me of hearing MJ Cole or Bugz in the Attic for the first time, just unabashed U.K. dance brilliance. It's also making me think twice about where I'll be when the Dirty Projectors are here for Lollapalooza. This song is nothing without Amber Coffman."

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4) Kanye West "Lost in the World" - Rock-A-Fella

Ok, yes, that is the cover to "Power," but we like the sonic folk-turn-tribal-banger "Lost in the World" better. A rare, vulnerable hip-hop cut, it's the type of song that only Kanye could muster. Who else would team with Bon Iver and somehow still make something that can send dance floors into fits. And while I've heard others complain about it, I fully appreciate Gil Scott-Heron's sampled spoken word at the end. No one can preach it like that guy, not even Kanye, and we dug what he had to say.

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3) LCD Soundsystem "I Can Change" - DFA/EMIJames Murphy has a unique poeticism to him. I think "Love is an open book to a verse of your bad poetry / And this is coming from me" is my single favorite song lyric from this year. Sad and defiant, lovely and hopeful, and wrapped in a throbbing electro-disco beat, "I Can Change" is the most rebellious love song of the year.

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2) Yeasayer "O.N.E." - Secretly Canadian

We've already sent many praises Yeasayer's way as we sum up 2010. Odd Blood is great on the whole, but it is chiefly because of this song that we were so fond of this particular batch of Williamsburg ex-hipsters. Full of big live bass and off-kilter keys, "O.N.E." takes vintage LCD or the Rapture and steeps it in acid. The result is the most infectious psych dance tune we've heard in some time. The final climax just shy of the five minute mark is the epitome of patience paying off.

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1) Arcade Fire "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" - Merge

Like the subject matter it discusses at length,The Suburbs can float by facelessly if you don't listen closely. That is, at least, until you get to this Blondie-channeling masterpiece at the end of the record. If not sufficiently engaged with the music, this song will snap your consciousness to attention and then send it falling slowly backwards onto a bed of disco synths, hypnotic guitars and dancing drums. "The Sprawl II" has its own distinct personality from the rest of the record, and in it we found the single to top all others in 2010, a melancholy indie-discoid diamond in the rough.

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